"Um... Professor. Why are you telling me this?"
"Because you should see that I have been where you are. Training hard, trying to prove something, trying to make something visible that people would rather ignore. We are not so different."
Claire said nothing.
Ard exhaled. "The short version is, do not let envy become your foundation. The drive to prove yourself is worth something. Envy leads to a dead end and then a slow fall. And do not look down on anyone without reason."
He walked in a slow circle around her, one foot dragging slightly, tracing a ring in the grass.
"Human, demon, elf, beastman. Every one of them is a living creature the same as you and I. The difference between them is not race. It is the individual. And the individual cannot be measured by a story in a book or a reputation passed down through generations. Sometimes the person everyone calls wicked feeds stray cats in the evening. Sometimes the person everyone calls good kills a bird for no reason."
The night wind moved through the training ground, carrying leaves past them both, lifting Claire's hair and Ard's together.
"The way I see it, a good person is not someone who is always right. It is someone who does not harm others without cause, who recognizes when they have made a mistake, and who corrects it. Though plenty of people hide behind the label of good to avoid being held to it."
Claire's eyes had gone quiet and attentive. "Then what about the person everyone calls bad?"
"A child who steals food." He glanced up at the sky briefly. "That is not a good act. But what is the food for? Most likely to eat immediately. But what if the child does not eat it? What if he stole it to bring back to younger siblings waiting for him to return?"
"That is an interesting story."
Ard smiled without showing his teeth.
"Someone who has done something wrong is not necessarily a bad person. Often there is more to it than what the act looks like from the outside. A bad person is someone who causes harm to others and to themselves without reason and without remorse."
He let the silence rest for a moment.
"Honestly, I do not like the kind of person you were in class today." He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. Claire's gaze dropped slightly. "But that does not mean I dislike you."
Claire looked at him again. The wind pressed her hair back from her face. Ard was watching the sky, his posture relaxed, speaking the way someone speaks when they are not performing anything. It reminded her of something older. Someone older.
"The clouds have covered the sky."
"So they have." Claire smiled. It was quiet and small and entirely real. "Professor."
Ard turned.
"I am sorry for what I said earlier. And..." The smile did not leave. "Thank you. I think I understand some things now that I did not before."
The wind moved again, slow and unhurried, turning leaves in the air between them.
Ard thought, briefly, that a life like this would not be so difficult to accept.
"Good." He let himself smile as well, smaller than hers. "Now go get some rest."
"Thank you again. Good night, Professor."
"5th Circle Magic. Fire Ball. Mega!"
Claire spun.
A massive ball of fire was dropping toward them from directly above Ard's position, fast and deliberate.
"Professor! Look out!"
She was not going to reach it in time.
"Lutra."
Lutra appeared between the fireball and the ground in an instant. She kicked it. Not deflected, not redirected. It came apart on contact, scattering into embers that died before they reached the grass.
"Goodness, Young Master. Why could you not handle that yourself. Making me work at this hour. What if my skin starts to sag?" She pressed both palms to her cheeks with theatrical distress.
Ard laughed in a way that suggested he was not entirely at ease. Claire had sweat on her forehead and no expression.
'I cannot look at her.'
Claire had suddenly become very interested in the middle distance.
"I am not letting you sleep before I do tonight."
"You are truly cruel, Young Master. And I am just a frail young woman."
"Remove the word frail and reconsider young."
"Ehh?~"
Then Claire felt it.
"!!!" Killing intent. From behind. Sudden and cold and entirely certain of itself.
'Damn!!!.'
She was holding a wooden sword. She began channeling aura into it immediately, but her attacker was already there. By the time she had half-turned, a dagger filled with violet aura was already at her back.
Then the attacker was gone.
Not retreated. Launched. The impact against the wall behind them was loud enough to hear from several meters away.
Claire looked down.
A circle of scuffed earth surrounded her feet, shaped by a dragging step she had not seen Ard take. It was still faintly luminous.
"Aegis."
A protection-type spell. It could be cast directly or placed on a person or object in advance.
'He already knew the attack was coming.'
"I have been sensing the wind for a while now." Ard did not look away from the direction the attacker had come from. "Headmaster. Why were you standing there quietly."
'what?' Claire's eyes went wide.
"Oh my. You want a woman like me to work at night?"
Elisha's voice came from above. A shadow passed over Claire. She looked up.
Elisha was descending from somewhere in the air above them, her expression arranged into something resembling mild displeasure, moving downward like a feather with no intention of hurrying.
'The Headmaster. How long has she been there?!'
Ard tilted his head with a thin, faintly mocking expression.
"That is what comes with being the one in charge."
"That has nothing to do with it!" Elisha puffed her cheeks.
Elisha's feet touched the grass without a sound.
"Good evening, Headmaster." Claire and Lutra greeted her together.
"Hello." Warm and immediate.
"Headmaster. You change outfits often."
"Is that a problem? Wearing different things is perfectly normal."
"No, it is not a problem. I only wonder if it is not inconvenient."
"Why would it be inconvenient?"
"No reason."
"Tell me!" Elisha struck his chest with both hands, repeatedly, in the manner of someone who had been told something irritating and was expressing it physically.
Claire recognized that this was not the moment for this conversation and decided to be the one to end it.
"I apologize for the interruption, but we need to move the students to safety. This is an attack."
"Hmm? Ah, do not worry about that, Claire." Elisha's tone did not change at all.
"There are more than six of them. I can sense it. And the one who just attacked used fifth-circle magic."
"Claire." Ard placed a hand briefly on the top of her head, steadying. She went quiet. When her breathing had settled, he continued.
"There is someone here who once negotiated a ceasefire between four races and made it hold. A living legend you are looking at right now."
He paused and glanced to his right.
"Arbiter of Silence. Elisha II. Evangeline De Gray."
Claire looked at Elisha.
The night wind returned. The clouds that had been covering the sky began to pull apart, and the moonlight came through in a long, steady column, falling directly across Elisha where she stood. Her silver hair caught it and seemed to glow from within, strands lifting and crossing in the moving air like something woven from light itself.
She had been standing with her arms folded. Now her right hand came up to touch her cheek, and she looked away with an expression that was doing its best to appear modest.
"How embarrassing~" A small sigh. "I suppose it cannot be helped."
A small sphere appeared in her open hand, hovering just above her palm without touching it. It rotated slowly. The color was deep gold.
"You want me to clean up these pests personally? My dignity is slightly wounded."
"You are not the type to put your dignity above your students," Ard said, already eating another piece of cake that Lutra had produced from somewhere.
"What use are the professors here, then? Well, it does not matter. I will handle this in a moment. And afterward, I will be deducting the salaries of any professor who failed to contribute."
Ard went still.
Not from the cold. From the smile on Elisha's face, which was pleasant in a way that made the air feel very slightly wrong.
* * *